Morbid Anatomy’s Contemporary Artist Blogroll
November 14, 2008
If you enjoy antique medical models, specimen collections, and anatomical diagrams from various cultures and eras, please treat yourself to the Morbid Anatomy blog. It’s not (too) icky, I promise.
The author is kind enough to include several thorough blogrolls, including museums, online exhibitions, a bibliography, and other like-minded websites. They also have compiled a list of contemporary(ish) artists whose work recalls anatomical study, whether morbid or not. The list goes from Gorey to Bourgeois to Ryden to Hirst and back. Check ‘em out.
Anatomy of the skeleton, attributed to Avicenna, 980-1037. From this article on the history of anatomical maps in Asia, via Morbid Anatomy.
Related: Sarah’s del.icio.us bookmarks tagged “anatomy”. And everyone else’s.
Paho Mann and Dylan Bradway, My Famous Friends
October 9, 2008
Untitled (Re-inhabited Circle-K Store, Albuquerque), photograph by Paho Mann. Click image to visit the artist’s website.
Two things happened on the internet this week. (That’s right, just two. This blog post makes three.) Two of my artist friends, Dylan Bradway and Paho Mann, have been recognized on blogs with startlingly high readerships.
Dylan Bradway is an up-and-comer here in Oklahoma City. In addition to quality graphic design (such as the catalog for Art 365), he creates evocative paintings incorporating stylized characters and street-influenced calligraphic line. He and his partner-in-life Amanda Weathers-Bradway recently set up shop in OKC’s Plaza District.
This morning I got a text from Dylan instructing me to “check out Juxtapoz.com.” Sure enough, the Juxtapoz blog is featuring a group show of train car designs that includes a piece by Dylan. (That guy in the green hoodie on the red car? That’s Dylan’s.) The Train Car Project will be on display at Papa B Studios in Brooklyn, October 10-22.
Paho Mann is an old friend and colleague from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. A precise formalist photographer, Paho has long been interested in typologies — objects that are of a category and also have unique characteristics. My favorite series of his is the re-inhabited Circle K stores, a staple of Albuquerque’s accidental non-architecture.
This week Paho’s Junk Drawer series was discovered by a New York Times blog called The Moment, a kind of digital-state-of-the-union roundup, followed by Kottke.org. Here is a transcript of the email I sent him upon learning this news:
YOU HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED BY THE NYTIMES BLOG AND [redacted] JASON
KOTTKE DUUUUUUUDE THE ENTIRE INTERNET KNOWS YOU NOW OMFG YOU ARE
FAMOUS
Splendid job, guys. Keep it up.
Xerox Transfer Workshop at Untitled Artspace, OKC
October 8, 2008
Gift, oil and alkyd on canvas, 2004 by Joe Ramiro Garcia. Click here to visit the artist’s website.
I mentioned in an earlier two-part post that there are many ways to transfer an image from one surface to another. Untitled Artspace in Oklahoma City is offering a workshop on one of these methods, taught by visiting artist Joe Ramiro Garcia.
Xerox Lithography Workshop
October 18 - 19, 2008Joe Ramiro Garcia will teach a two-day Xerox Lithography Workshop on Saturday and Sunday, October 18 and 19. The workshop will have sessions from 10 am - 6 pm each day. Xerox lithography involves using a Xerox copy of an image and transferring it with gum arabic. Garcia is a Santa Fe-based artist and exhibited his art at Untitled [ArtSpace] in May and June 2007. … Supplies will be included.
If you’re in the area and interested in this method of image transfer, a workshop at Untitled is a fabulous way to leapfrog into some new work.
David Foster Wallace (1962 - 2008)
September 14, 2008
David Foster Wallace Considers the Lobster. Acrylic, ink and collage on paper, 2006.
Los Angeles Times obituary for David Foster Wallace.
David Foster Wallace at Wikipedia.
Ryan: Animated Short by Chris Landreth
July 18, 2008
(Thank you, Drawn!) Friends, I’ve just seen something, and you should see it too. Do you know the feeling that rises, when you’re reading or watching or hearing something, and your sense of time slows, your muscles fill with cooling gel, and you think, “Oh my God, this is important“? I watched this film and sort of felt my world turn a corner.
Still from Ryan, an animated film by Chris Landreth.
Not only does Landreth use his medium for purposeful and poetic storytelling, but he portrays strikingly accurate visual representations of love and addiction. Watch the film online at the YouTube Screening Room.
Read more about the film here.
Read more about Ryan Larkin here.
Abstract Earth: Stunning Satellite Imagery
July 12, 2008
Satellite Image of Aleutian Clouds, North America. Click image to view its source.
Are you looking for ideas for your next thirty abstract paintings? Because NASA beat you to it. But you can go visit them at the Environmental Graffiti blog.
Survey: Do you use Creative Commons and Flickr?
July 11, 2008
Untitled photograph from Flickr user Sevenshades. This photo is one of many images on Flickr with a Creative Commons license. Click image to view its source.
From the creativecommons.org blog:
Our good friend and new media sociologist Alek Tarkowski from CC Poland has been working hard to compile data for a new report on Flickr user patterns and content licensing. This’ll be a great boost for deepening our developing case study, and will go a long way to supporting our ongoing efforts to develop an understanding of how creators release their works.
But he needs your help to gather data! You can get a link to his short survey here. Definitely worth the few minutes.
For more on CC Poland’s work check out their site.
I, for one, use Flickr both to showcase my cc-licensed work and to search for other cc-licensed images. Help spread the word!
Boys Who Love The Subway
July 11, 2008
Speaking of maps…
Christoph Niemann’s sons give helpful directions to a stranger.
Here is a delightfully illustrated story in the New York Times about two little boys and their love for the MTA. An excellent example of using symbols as visual language, the perfect mix between pictures and words. You can see more of Niemann’s work at his website, www.christophniemann.com. (Ooh! Ooh! Turns out he did one of my favorite New Yorker covers, which you can see here. Scroll down to the lady with the pikachu kimono.)
Mystery Solved: It’s Nagel
June 26, 2008
Coop killing his devil. Click image to visit its source.
Paintblogger and pop-culture powerhouse Coop recently published his thoughts about a runaway image. He painted it, he sold it, and the durn thing grew legs and ran away to live its own life. (One never knows what’s going to take hold of the public’s attention.) Coop likens his experience to the nail salon poster phenomenon. You know, the ones with the white skin, black hair, sharp eyes, linear features? I’ve seen those my whole life and wondered where they first came from. Now, thanks to Coop and BoingBoing, I know. Those of you who, like me, were born after 1979, meet Patrick Nagel.
notabene. Sites linked to from this blog post may contain R-rated material.
All Faiths Beautiful
June 24, 2008
Recently on PostSecret I saw this video promoting the current exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum:
Link to the All Faiths Beautiful Flickr set.
From a Washington Post review of the All Faiths Beautiful show:
Outsider artists are presumed to create out of some pure inner vision and not in response to any trends in the art world. Their creations tend to be idiosyncratic and sometimes inscrutable, and have a long-night-of-hallucination feel. …The creations seem driven by an instinct that lies somewhere between compulsion and belief. They express less a coherent faith than a desperate attempt to be seen and understood, even if the outreach ultimately fails. …The show is at its best when it showcases the more peculiar “faiths,” and then challenges you to connect.
One of the more challenging parts of All Faiths Beautiful is the portion of the show devoted to atheism. As to whether atheism can be considered a faith, that’s up for grabs. But one individual who has expressed a particularly poetic atheistic worldview is the late great Mr. George Carlin. In a 2004 interview with Terry Gross, Carlin explained that while he was not a religious man, he did find spiritual sustenance in the notion that everything in this universe is made up of atoms that were created in the heart of a star. If we are all made of the same material, he reasoned, then we are all one, and if that’s true, then what is there to be afraid of? I’ve included a video of Carlin explaining his views on religion below. (Caution: salty language and challenging notions.) Because all faiths ARE BEAUTIFUL in this here blog post.
Related: Sarah’s del.icio.us sites tagged religion.